improved of late, but today an associated press raised these concerns saying, quote: in politics power resides in the moment. any immediate economic setback or the perception of one could weaken obama's clout or at least distract him as he carefully tries to put his imprint on initiatives dealing with immigration and gun violence. let's talk about it with a.b. stoddard, an associate editor and columnist for "the hill." a.b., the president has been mostly talking about immigration and gun violence lately, and yet we still have an unemployment rate at 7.8%. if labor force participation were the same as when he took office, it would be over 10%. we've got a fall in our nation's economic output in the last quarter, and you've got new, um, shrinking of consumer confidence. those are some pretty big issues. does that threaten to derail what the president wants to accomplish? >> well, it will. you mentioned before whether or not these issues would distract him. i mean, a troubled economy has to distract him whether or not he actually focuses on it is another question. much of these last few m

republicans that president obama is not looking to moderate and move to the middle but is instead looking for a political fight. >> i decided not to comment between the election and the inauguration because i wanted to see what kind of president we're looking at here? what kind of path and trajectory he was putting his administration on. all of the statements and all of the comments lead me to believe he is thinking more of a political conquest than political compromise. and that is my concern. jon: ryan also focused on the nation's fiscal crisis saying only significant spending cuts, not tax reform, will solve the deficit problem. that is something is he thinks the president is missing. >> i don't think that the president thinks we actually have a fiscal crisis. he has been reportedly saying to our leaders we don't have a spending problem, we have a health care problem. that leads me to conclude he thinks we ought to have more government-run health care and rationing. i don't think that is going to work. jon: let's get back to karl rove. karl, what about his thoughts on a president bent on c

biden. i think he is sincere in all this, but he is out there with a dog of an issue politically. he wants to run in 2016 and he is stuck doing this while hillary clinton is going to cohost 60 minutes with barack obama this sunday. i am sure he is very bitter about that. jon: that is why we have the vice president giving helpful device that if you really want to protect yourself, go buy a shotgun. that way he can work both sides of the issue -- push for gun control, but still be an advocate for guns? >> it's not really great advice. while i think a shotgun is good, it's also really good at killing the innocent bystander next to the person raking into your house. the whole thing is that joe biden knows that he can be anti-gun. the problem is that this administration, for good reasons or bad, they have zero credibility with the gun rights community. they believe that dianne feinstein and barack obama wants to take away guns. they believe that in their bones. this legislation is so full of loopholes and wants to lay down a predicate to make it easier down the road to check gun owners an